Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

Were glad for what we've got
Done with what we've lost
Our whole lives laid out right in front of us"
-- Existentialism on Prom Night

Straylight Run is an interesting group; interesting when you consider it was started by two members of Taking Back Sunday but the music, like Existentialism on Prom Night, is outrageously mellow when compared to their former band. I'm a big fan of the song though.

Aside from camp-related stuff, I'm really not doing much these days.

"Life is hard if you try to live too fast"

Ok, so it took roughly a month with some carefully timed visits and conversations, but it was clearly worth the effort if it means less conflicts. My mother, as usual, did the saving because she's unnaturally parent friendly. I never know if getting on the good side of parents is because of who I am, or because of who my mother is. Cause I think all the parents I'm in the good books of has at one point or another engaged in half hour conversations with her.

Grant, I apologize profusely for not telling you personally that the interboy social was today and not tomorrow. I'm giving up on relaying messages through a middle person.

The interboy social was pretty fun. Adam Vogueler, who hosted it lives in a freakin' mansion. And I don't just mean it's a big house. This thing is literally a mansion complete with tennis and basketball courts in the backyard and acres of land around it. I was wondering why the food was free...

Remember that every family is a living, breathing organism, and be prepared to change and grow through an unending series of cycles large and small.

Remember when you first learned to dance with a new partner? Feet were stepped on now and then. You stumbled. Your partner stumbled. Yet eventually, you gained a sense of confidence and grace.

Remember that every relationship is a dance.

Remember that you can create new family patterns.

When conflict arises (and it invariably will) don't forget to take a good look at yourself.

Remember to ask: Which of this is truly mine to own, and which is not?

Above all, remember this: When it comes to parents, there are no laws. If there ever were, you can be certain that they've already been broken.

"No, you can't have a sip of my drink cause you've eaten non-Kosher food"
"... so you're never going to kiss a non-Kosher girl? Cause that's essentially the same thing!"
-- Overheard at Inter-Boy staff meeting

Ah, I love my interboy staff members. As Grant very aptly put it, it seems like at Camp Robin Hood, the camp itself is secondary. First and foremost comes the socials and interactions between the staff. So maybe I WILL go to that staff-social formal dinner this Friday for kicks.

Meet the parent night only served to prolong our day from an 8-hour work day to a 13-hour work day. It's not like we said anything original. I mean, you tell the parents "Oh, xyz's a great camper and likes to have fun," even though what you really mean is "Your son is the spawn of Satan," cause you're really not supposed to say anything mean about the kids. Something about the rich parents putting a lot of money into the camp.

There's one fundamental flaw I've noticed in a lot of professional sports. Apparently, calls can't be retracted, even if they were made wrongly. You see them most often in tennis and baseball, with linesmen in tennis and umpires in baseball. Obviously, linesmen and umpires are not perfect and they can make mistakes, but what annoys me is that even after making wrong calls and confirming them as wrong on slow motion replays, they're hardly EVER overruled, I guess owing to the fact that you've made the call in front of thousands of people. I still think it's stupid though, that fairness in the sport is overruled by the "we've already made the call and it's too late."

"I never let you turn around, your back on each other
That's a good idea, break a promise to your mother
Turn around, your back on each other
You say that I changed
Well maybe I did"
-- Never Let You Go

Another great song, introduced to me by Courtney Scott, who was the same person who introduced me to 12:51 by The Strokes. Grant, she seems to be the ideal girl for you, based solely on her music tastes... well that and she plays softball and has one heck of a throwing arm.

In other news, the overnight. It was absolutely not of this world. Usually, a full day of camp is enough to tire me out for a full night's rest. Consider that I not only had a full day of camp, I had a full night of it as well. And between night duty and allergies... and Victoria getting up at 5 in the morning to run laps around camp, I got all of 3 hours of sleep... and expected to run Friday like any other day of camp. It was so ridiculously tiring that when I got home today, I was reading and on the verge of calling someone when I fully passed out and did not wake up until just over an hour ago.

Despite being obliged to do night duty, I must say that was the highlight of my overnight. If I had to actually exert my night duty responsibilities, obviously I'd think otherwise but as it stood, I didn't actually have to do anything except be within the campsite. I lay on my back and watched the stars, which were out because we were sufficiently far from the light pollution, and just enjoyed them for what they were worth.

The one scary part of my shift was that I found that in the completely and total silence of the night, my section lead Don managed to walk right by me... so silently I was not aware of his presence. Apparently, he's been trained to do that. He used to shadow campers at overnight camps and catch them doing stuff. But then again, he's a witch so...

"Joshua poured a urine sample on my head and it's now trickling down by back and between my buttcrack"
-- Camper

"No, he's not gay... he's Jewish"
-- One of my section counsellors

Apparently, I have just found out today that my camp is a "secular Jewish camp." The quotes by the way, were ones that were mentioned at our Section Social this evening. But apparently, what a secular Jewish camp means is that well, 90% of the kids are Jewish, but 10% who are not are also made welcome. I was wondering all week why there was such a big stress on Kosher food and that all my co-counsellors seemed to be Jewish. There's a lot of Jewish bashing going on at my section social; it seems to amuse them to point out funny parts about their religion.

I also found out that my Section Leader is a witch. And I don't mean witch as in he's mean spirited, I mean he's an actual genuine witch; his religion is wicca so to speak. In answer to the inevitable question, he informed us that he does not ride a broomstick.

Kosher food is interesting. Meatless hotdogs and dairyless ice cream didn't taste that different from the original stuff. Amusingly, the bottle of syrup we poured on our ice cream looked something like this, "CHOCOLATE flavored SYRUP"

Talk to me now I'm older
Your friends'll do cuz I told her
Friday night's a bit lonely
Change your plans and then phone me

We could go and get forties
Fuck going to that party
Oh really, your folks are away now?
Alright, let's go
You convinced me

12:51 is the time my voice
Found the words I sought
Is it this stage I want?
The world is shutting up for us
Oh we were tense for sure
But we was confident

Kiss me now that I'm older
I won't try to control you
Friday night's a bit lonely
Take it slow but don't warn me

We'd go out and get forties
Then we'd go to some party
Oh really, your folks are away now?
Alright I'm coming,
I'll be right there
-- 12:51, The Strokes

As much as I love this song, I think I'll use it as an example of the unoriginality in music. People complain about music by the same artist sounding similar and stuff but realistically, nearly ALL music follow a similar structure because it's simply how humans are built. The reason why you can take a course on "music harmony" is because there are essential rules around music that all humans follow. In other words, there are chord progressions that simply don't sound good together, regardless of what your taste in music are. The chord progressions that sound good are simply repeated, with different overlying melodies and lyrics. Any guitarist who's dabbled in cover songs can tell you this. The reason why 12:51 by the Strokes struck me today was because I noticed how unerringly similar it sounded to 99 Red Balloons. Obviously the lyrics are different and I'm sure there are people who can argue that they're different in many ways, but any guitarist who can play both songs will tell you the chords and tune are essentially the same batch, just moved around a bit.

It's still a great song though.

"Yeah, yeah, Berlin; that's where I stabbed a man and stole his testicles"
-- RHSA Camper (talking about EuroTrip)

First week of camp was alright. Uh, in theory, I should be at the Friday night social right now. Problem is that it's at a sports bar downtown and it doors opened at 10. This is not in and of itself a problem aside from the fact that the retarded subway lines don't operate past 1:30. Obviously, I can't drive down there like most of the staff members and leaving in order to catch the last bus up to my house would entail my leaving at 12:30 or so. Since the actual social doesn't actually start until roughly 11, or so I am told, I find little incentive to take the bus to Finch station and then the subway downtown only to have to leave 2 hours later considering I'll miss the real event and could not even drink if I wanted to because I'm underaged. That and I'd probably worry my parents to no end since they don't know anyone I'd be with all night.

I think I'll just attend my Unit Social next wednesday. Smaller crowd, and a little closer to home.

Ok, so in wake of recent protestation, I shall endeavor to PARAPHRASE my post about the clash between parents and their kids. So... main points are:

1. My parents are Chinese, and extremely broad-minded and I love them to death.

2. There are things I can't understand when it comes to the never-ending power struggle between parents and their kids

3. Parents always act with good intentions

4. Parents usually believe they know what's best for their kids

5. I think it's more common among Chinese parents to be more restrictive

6. Somewhere along the line, kids form their own priorities. There is then the clash where the parents disagree with the kids on what their priorities should be

7. When this happens, the kids CAN choose to trust the judgement of their parents, although it usually creates conflicts with the kid's friends

8. More often than not, kids think they know their priorities better than their parents

9. Parents can choose to take a huge step and trust their kids. It's huge because you're basically asking parents to trust their kids without understanding the reasons behind the choices the kids make.

10. Jon Wong's interjected opinion/rant: why do some parents have such narrow views that they don't genuinely listen to their kids? Freedom is a privilage, but parents have to be able to admit they're wrong sometimes and make it possible for kids to EARN that freedom. Otherwise, there is no incentive for them to do so.

11. Trusting their kids without understanding their reasons is something parents learn so kids, sometimes you have to bear with them. They're humans too.

12. Kids, don't BLOW the chance if your parents are so good as to trust you without understanding your reasons for doing something

13. What happens when the kid doesn't trust the parents and the parents don't trust the kid? Well that's when stuff like doing things behind the parents' back and the crazy protective parents come into existence.

14. To parents, saying "I trust you. I just don't trust him" in my opinion, is absolute CRAP. It doesn't make your kid feel any better, and more often than not, it just confuses them because most kids will find that remark contradictory.

15. To kids, saying things like "Well, I do things without telling my parents because they don't trust me" makes even less sense than parents saying "I trust you. I just don't trust him" You obviously can't expect your parents to trust you if you do things without telling them.

16. This all boils down to 2 words: communication and understanding. "Seek first to understand, then be understood" Usually the kid has to compromise first. If you give your parents what they want, they become more open to giving you what you want. When that happens, again, I reiterate, don't blow the chance.

Goodness, even as a summary it's fairly long.

"Shut up, shut up. All of you just shut the fuck up"
-- My section head

Yeah, apparently we all decided to ask him for a gaga ball within seconds of each other. First day of camp was... unbearably stressful. What with the noise and the kids with 2 second attention spans, setup, unfamiliarity, and stuff, I was completely dead by the time I got back. Oh yeah, and campers tend to run off without telling you either, resulting in many of these situations:

I count 11 kids
We should have 12...

I could go on, but it wouldn't really be necessary. And with Elaine out of the country and Steph heading off to Ottawa, this will be interesting. Always look for the humor. It keeps you from a mental breakdown.

I'll be just fine, pretending I'm not...

Take care of yourselves and each other

"... so no matter how I answer, I'll either sound pathetic, or like an egomaniac"
-- Jon Wong, talking about how I respond when people broach me on the issue of finding a bird

Trip up to the Winestock family cottage was for all intents and purposes a success. First night was mainly spent catering to the needs of two infant raccoons who mistook the hound as their mother. This occurred after we spent countless hours on the road trying to get TO the cottage due to us taking an "unorthodox route" during which time we engaged in one of the beloved Wongstock family conversations. I might note that during the journey up to Collingwood, the hound sat in the luxiourious front seat whilst the rest of us (4 in total) crammed into the back. The issue with the raccoons resulted in heavy debate and eventually a "broken social scene" that tainted the evening... we did however, talk about frosh week and how rituals were ten times worse in the States... where you stood a pretty good chance of getting sodomized by a beer bottle. You probably did not need to know that.

Good karma having been restored the next morning, we spent most of the day in a state of relaxation, either playing the guitar, or swinging in the hammock. Dinner was interesting. It resulted in another Wongstock family conversation about rating actresses on a scale of 1 to 10 purely based on their looks. After dinner, Grant, Brett, and I insisted on having an illegal bonfire in the Winestock family fire pit. Despite being told it was illegal, we insisted nonetheless, pointing out that our neighbors were having one. Furthermore, there were illegal fireworks being set off anyways. I may note that I would highly recommend at one point or another that everyone have a bonfire while watching fireworks. It's pretty amazing. Not quite on par with being sung to, but amazing nonetheless.

Anyhow, I digress. The fireworks ended, but we stayed by the bonfire and engaged in various conversations, which included the "half age + 7" rule that seemed to impress both brothers. Eventually, as the fire began to burn low and we could see the bed of hot coals, Brett mentioned some absurdity of finding a bird at Queen's, which led to me tracing chronologically the birds that had flown in and out of my high school career. That's when I made that statement at the top of this entry. At around midnight, we pour water over the rest of the coals and as the resulting smoke curled up towards the night sky, we looked up and saw the many, many stars that could be seen from where we were and it was really something. You don't see stars in the city cause of the lights but out in cottage country...

We watched the Exorcist that night too, but I think we all slept through parts of it. Not that the movie was slow. I think we were just really tired. The next day saw us celebrating Mr. Winestock's birthday. He got an assortment of pink clothes from his family. And kudos to him too. You have to be really secure in your masculinity to wear pink. Anyhow, we watched the BoSox get slaughtered by the Jays before departing from the cottage. That pretty much sums up the weekend.